


Obedience Training

by semperama



Series: Tumblr Ficlets - Pinto [28]
Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Competence Kink, Dogs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-12-05 07:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11573490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperama/pseuds/semperama
Summary: Zach comes to town thinking he'll have to help Chris train Wednesday, but it turns out he already has it taken care of.





	Obedience Training

Zach stops in Chris’s bedroom doorway and snorts in disbelief. “No way.”

“Way, man.” Chris comes up behind him and gives his shoulders a slap and a squeeze. “I told you I had it under control.”

Wednesday lifts her head off her paws and looks at them with big, expectant eyes, like she’s waiting for her next command. A couple minutes ago, she had been jumping all over Zach, going out of her little doggy mind over meeting a new friend, but all it took was one firm command from Chris and she had trotted off to her bed. Where she is lying now. Looking at them calmly. Like a completely different dog.

“No, Chris,” Zach says, half-turning to shoot a skeptical look over his shoulder. “What you said was that you were having trouble training her to sleep in her own bed.”

“And _then_ I said I had it under control.”

Zach should have known. It’s rare that Chris applies himself to a task and doesn’t master it. Why should training a dog be any different? He thought Chris would have trouble saying no to the puppy eyes, but maybe the opposite is true: the puppy has trouble saying no to the Chris Pine eyes.

As the day goes on, he realizes he’s not far off the mark. Chris makes them dinner—burgers on the grill—and they sit out on the back porch eating. When Wednesday plops herself down at his chair and looks up at Chris, silently begging, all it takes is one pointed look at her and a raise of his eyebrow and she lowers herself all the way down to the ground and puts her head on her paws, huffing as if in resignation. She doesn’t even try to beg Zach.

Then, later, when they take the dishes into the kitchen and grab beer from the fridge and plop themselves down on the couch, Wednesday comes up next to Chris and looks at the empty space next to him, but she doesn’t leap up until he pats a hand there and gives a quiet whistle. She turns a few quick circles on top of the cushion and then lays down with her head on Chris’s thigh, and when Zach looks down at her, she is looking back, staring steadily like she can will him to give her pats.

“She’ll keep looking at you like that until you pet her,” Chris says, then absently tongues the neck of his bottle in a way that draws Zach’s eyes. “I haven’t been able to break her of that one.”

Zach chuckles and stretches a hand across Chris’s lap to scratch her behind the ears. “I won’t lie to you,” he says. “I thought I was going to spend most of this trip on dog training duty.”

Chris smiles as he tips his beer back and takes a long swig. When he’s done, he licks the excess of his lips before giving Zach a sly, sideways look. “You don’t have a lot of faith in me, huh?”

“I have faith in you,” Zach insists, but he doesn’t want to meet Chris’s gaze for too long. Not precisely because he’s lying though. More because he’s afraid by now of what those eyes could make him do—or say. For all her silent pleading, Wednesday is the safer option. He strokes her fuzzy brow with one finger and smiles. “But I think you might just have yourself an abnormally well-behaved dog.”

“Why, just because you still can’t get Skunk to come when he’s called?”

Zach wrinkles his nose. “Skunk is a grumpy old man. He does what he wants.”

Chris laughs, and then they both fall silent, both watching Zach’s fingers where they caress Wednesday’s head and her velvety ears and under her pink collar. When he keeps reaching, glides his palm down her sleek back, his chest presses firmly into Chris’s shoulder, and he can feel when Chris swallows hard, when he turns his face and breathes against Zach’s neck.

“You should…you should bring them sometime,” Chris says. “Noah and Skunk. They can all, uh, have a playdate.”

Zach shuts his eyes against the temptation to look at Chris. His fingers splay across Wednesday’s back, combing through her fur. “People don’t usually fly across the country for doggie playdates.”

Chris’s forehead coming to rest against his temple is unexpected, and so is the sound of his voice, low and rough like he just woke up, or like he’s telling a secret. “When have we ever done things the way people usually do?”

He’s reeling Zach in, drawing him out slowly. First it’s ‘you have a free weekend, come meet Wednesday’ and then it’s ‘next time bring the kids’ and who knows what it’ll be after that. Chris figured out how to get what he wants out of his dog, and now he’s setting his sights on Zach, and Zach doesn’t have defenses for that. This confidence knocks him flat. And the competence does worse than that. When Chris turns his head away and murmurs a quick, “Get down,” at first Zach thinks he’s talking to him, but it’s Wednesday who gets to her feet, shakes herself, and then jumps down to the floor.

“How on Earth—” Zach says. Chris cuts him off with fingers on his jaw, turning his face toward him.

“Kiss me,” he says.

And Zach obeys.


End file.
